


The Mayfly Problem

by a_mere_trifle



Category: Young Wizards - Diane Duane
Genre: Aging, Angst and Humor, Gen, Gen Work, Introspection, Multi, Navel-Gazing, Present Tense, Vacation, extraplanetary export law, parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-22
Updated: 2016-04-22
Packaged: 2018-06-03 21:00:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6626095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_mere_trifle/pseuds/a_mere_trifle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Another "wizard's holiday" teaches Nita and Kit what it's like to be a dragon, impossibly old.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Mayfly Problem

**Author's Note:**

> (I'm only current up to Wizard of Mars, so I make no strict canonicity guarantees)
> 
> Prompt: [Young Wizards, Nita/Kit, depending on the alien culture they meet, they may be considered young, or old](http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/560173.html?thread=78943533#t78943533)

-

Wednesday

She keeps apologizing, and Kit doesn't know why, which wouldn't bother him so much (every question has an answer if you work hard enough at asking) if she sounded like she had any idea herself. He stokes through her hair, lingering a little too long over her forehead, just in case she's got a fever. She doesn't, but he doesn't worry less.

"I'm sorry, I can't--" she says. "We don't have _time_ for this--"

"We have as much time as we need, I'm not going out there until you calm down and neither are you. It's not like screwing this up would be--"

"But there's no _time_ \--"

"Neets. Neets, _breathe_."

"But there--"

"I'm telling you, _breathe_." 

He tugs her closer; she keeps trying to rock, starts to say something, and then collapses toward him, her head pressed against his chest. She breathes, still too shallow and too quick, but she breathes. His hand shakes a little as he strokes down her back; he's starting to think he's got the shape of it, but he doesn't quite know why it's hitting her this hard, doesn't have any answers that he knows of.

Then again, he might just not know it. It's happened often enough before.

"They keep asking..." she says, voice muffled. "Like we're supposed to know something, because we're so much older, and, what do we know? What do we know about life? What do we tell them? What have we been doing with all this time??"

He snorts. "Well, we saved the universe, and then the Atlantic and associated coastal regions, and then a couple gods and all the universes, and then like Ireland, and another couple planets, and the universe again--"

She has to laugh at that; _Okay, dumb question,_ he hears, a falling flutter of a thought. "But everyone, everyone on earth, we have all this time, and what do we..."

"Mostly figure out what our goal's supposed to be. It's not like anyone told us. It's not like we've all got the same one. And..." He stops, waits for the thought to disentangle itself in his mind. Waiting has value, he's learning. "It's not like anyone's got enough time to figure it all out. No one's got enough time in this universe. It's not until we go to the next one that we've got any chance at all."

"I guess." She laughs again, still shallow and fleeting; "Do you remember, that time at the conference, and Dan--"

The image comes to his mind before she shares her own, the creature vaguely like a gray, winged Jabba, if Hutts could float, or were ten hundred times the size, or had any inclination toward wizardry; his species lived essentially in space, and five thousand years, on average. He'd spoken so quickly to them all, and seemed so nervous. It had seemed so strange for someone so ancient to be so insecure. "I guess we understand now."

"And Fred..." she says, and falls quiet, pressing a little closer. Fred, who could or should have lived another billion years, some unimaginable span of time, and yet had been a friend.

He thinks about that for a moment, and says, "So what would Fred do?"

She thinks about it in turn. Her breathing's still a little shallow, but it's getting slower, she's steadying under his hand. 

"Go out there with our fellow people and get this done," she says.

Sounds about right to him.

She gets up, and scrubs at her eyes, and offers him a hand up. He takes it, and links their fingers together tight, and they go back out to where Hei and the rest of the M'fali wizards are waiting.

-

Thursday

She'd told her father there would be separate beds. There are! They'd even meant to use them. But the other one is so very far away. And Kit is so warm. And it's not like there is any chance in any of the universes that either of them would be up for any "messing around" right now anyway.

"Teenage b'ys're alw'ys up for m'ss'ng ar'nd," Kit mumbles into her shoulder.

She pokes him. "Stop stereotyping, you're gonna give yourself a complex."

"'S mostly true. Just. M'be not now." He nestles perhaps half an inch closer, in a great display of effort.

She sighs, trying to stroke a hand through his hair, mostly just clumsily brushing through it. _Spring Break,_ she thinks, mostly a curse.

_Wizard's holiday,_ Kit thinks back, mumbling even in thought.

_Whose lousy idea was this, anyway?_ she muses, remembering full well that it was hers. Hopefully he forgives her.

_Course I do. Thought it was a great idea. Prob'ly was. Can we get a vacation from vacation now?_

_I think we have a whole weekend until school starts back again._ She laughs bleakly. _I'm not converting the time zones right now._

"This is gonna get r'dicul's if they're all like this," says Kit. "How d'you get 'ny time off in this b'sness?"

"Should ask Tom and Carl. They've gotta know. Otherwise they'd be dead by now." 

Sometimes (she keeps this as quiet as she can), she thinks of all the things they've been through, the gods they've met and birthed and thwarted, the dreams that have come true and the voice of wizardry itself in the back of her mind, and she wonders how long they've possibly got.

"Beaches are out," she says, trying to focus seriously on the problem, so maybe he won't hear. "Sand didn't work. Scenic landmarks, yeah, I think we can rule that one out."

_Probably could've guessed after Mars..._

"Or maybe that's just telling us not to bother with timeslides? Ugh, that couldn't possibly-- that's so begging for trouble you might as well write it a love letter. Post a Missed Connections for trouble on Craigslist. Or what was that app Carmela was talking about?"

_I'm pretty sure my life depends on only selectively paying attention to anything Mela says._ He's starting to doze, but she gets the sense he more than half believes it. She's not sure she could win an argument against it, either.

"Or you know, how about we don't go anywhere and just say we did. Get the time off, block out our locations in the Manual, get some pillows and a fuzzy blanket and break out the good ice cream. Maybe some old movies..."

_2046 has weekend marathons... I can never tell what's going on, but it feels more like it's because they meant it to be and not because I haven't read up on Venusian mating patterns..._

"Maybe a little alien cable. But you know I can't take mega-doses of that, my brain starts to leak out of my ears." Or sometimes it feels that would be preferable to the headache. 

Her phone buzzes softly; she sighs, slowly and reluctantly moving to wiggle it out of her pocket. _How would you put it? Taking a vacation at an undisclosed location to..._

_Nah, too much attention, you'd skip the location._

_Brief mental health break at a relaxing locale..._ Now why had that phrase jumped to mind? 

She shakes her head, squinting at the message. "It's too late for this, project it," she tells the phone, which obligingly displays the Manual's message screen against the ceiling. 

_Dai Stiho!_

_Wow, I can't believe it's already been so long since we made it through that. Well, I can't even really believe we made it through that! It really helped having such experts on the team. I know you didn't really get to see the Peaks while you were here, but if you ever want to come appreciate the sights a little more deeply, you'll ever be welcome._

_Things here are getting back to routine, thank goodness. It's strange to see the hatchlings toddling around who won't even ever remember a time before this happened. Starless skies are going to be a fairy tale to them, those things the old people tell them to keep them quiet. I bet the non-wizards will start doubting it ever happened. Time is really weird. I'm sorry, talking to you guys just really reminds me of that sort of thing._

_Anyway, I have an intervention to run with Stehlan, we've been seeing a lot more of each other since you helped us patch things up. I feel like my life's finally starting to have a direction to it, that I might kind of know what I'm doing for once. Like I ever have! But hey, maybe this time, right?_

_Good luck where the winds take you!_

_-Hei_

She looks at the timestamp on her phone, keyed to Earth time, the better to not freak out parents. It hasn't even been twelve hours.

Kit is squinting blearily at the ceiling alongside her. _Underage drinking is illegal, and breaking local laws speeds entropy,_ he recites. _As does killing brain cells. Drinking is definitely a bad, bad thing._

He sounds about as convinced as she is right now.

She sighs, dropping her phone and settling closer. _This weekend. You, me, nowhere further than either of our houses. You break into Carmela's bartering stash and I'll get the blankets._

_I value my life, I **buy** my chocolate. But yeah. Let's do this thing._

She shifts a little, and tugs a sheet over them, thinking that this in itself is rather a good start.

-

Friday

Tom knows this look. This is the look of a youth convinced they've discovered one of his secrets. It's probably not going to be a problem; it almost never is. Most of his "secrets" are public domain, anyway.

Nita looks at him, and says, "Last November."

She might as well have said 1885. It's hard to remember that far back. He looks sometimes at the changelog of his name, wincing at the brutal attenuation that came with that one particular week, still uncertain how he feels about the additions and deletions that have come since. His name says he's roughly the same person, but sometimes he isn't as sure.

"What exactly about it?" He doesn't remember anything so earthshattering as to have marked the month indelibly enough to need no modifiers. Unlike, say, that one particular week.

"That Thanksgiving vacation," says Kit. He looks faintly accusing, and Tom doesn't have the faintest idea why.

It must show on his face. Nita says, "Brief mental health break to relax with family?"

That sounds like the way he phrases things when he's feeling particularly ironic. He still doesn't follow whatsoever, though.

"Exactly where did you go?" says Kit. 

There's got to be a reason behind this. Vacations. They just went on one.

Suddenly, it clicks. "No, we _didn't_ ever say we were going anywhere, and no, we actually didn't," he says. "It wasn't meant to be deceptive..."

"But if everyone knew where you were, they might just come bother you anyway..." says Kit, frowning.

"Never mind that, did it _work_?" says Nita, leaning forward, looking a little too starry-eyed. He should have warned them more. But they aren't supposed to interfere too much, and there are good reasons for that. It's a devil of a balance to strike.

He sighs. "Not completely, let me just warn you now. There were the two days we were sucked into the termite cult thing, just, don't even ask. There's always something."

"But the other five?"

He's almost embarrassed to admit it. "...Netflix and takeout. Sometimes a little monocultural break is good for one's sanity."

" _Five days._ " She looks far too awed at the prospect. 

"I've been a little busy recently-- tell your sister I said thanks again for the emergency interplanetary export law crash course, by the way-- and tell _yours_ , Nita, that she may not like having to file justifications for extraplanetary jaunts, and I'm not asking for the details of whatever it is she's got planned, but don't get cute with me, she isn't fooling anybody-- where did this sentence begin before the sororal distractions... That's right. I'm behind on my news feeds, just how much trouble did you get into?" He hasn't heard of any major theological shifts, so on their scale, it can't be all that bad.

(He keeps hoping the next cosmic event will be the last one, the finale, the pinnacle of their careers, and they will go on to a long and reasonably sedated but fulfilling adult career. Then they always manage to top themselves again. No one who accomplishes such feats is permitted to last very long in the stories. Then again, as a writer, he's aware that only certain types of stories tend to get written down. At the moment, he's fairly certain that's the only hope for any of them.)

"It wasn't that bad, just... well..." Nita sighs, and flips her manual open, sliding it across the counter.

_Dai Stiho!_

_I'm sorry I keep forgetting to write you. It's amazing how the time flies by! And a wizard's life is never quiet, either. There's distractions and distractions and I could almost forget that time, as monumental as it was. Sometimes I hear people talking about it like it's just a story, an old fairy tale; but that's not the scary thing; the scary thing is when I catch myself thinking about it like that too._

_The plains are so beautiful in the bright season. Only half of it has really grown back in yet but I think that makes it more beautiful, the tenacity of what's regrown, the dark soil where maybe nothing ever will again. Or maybe it will. Ever's a terribly long time. Well, you'd know!_

_Oh, and Stehlan and Yi and I finally got married! Everyone is saying they saw it coming forever ago, well I wish they'd clued me in! I wanted to send you an invitation, but I knew you'd be busy, and so far away, and honestly it might weird people out. I mean, I know you saw it. You dealt really well with it but I know it must have been hard for you. Our first litter is brooding now, and it's got me thinking about time, about what I want to pass on. But it keeps me too busy to dwell too much!_

_Anyway, I hope you're doing well out there. They say it's having kids that leaves a legacy, but it's weird to have friends who will remember you generations and generations from now. Well... I've got to get back to that generating!_

_-Hei_

"The mayfly problem," he says, and heaves a matching sigh. They're running into all of them, aren't they? There are wizards who never leave their planets, never leave their towns.

There are wizards who never turn thirteen.

"I mean, it's life and all, but... and challenges are great, and it's not that I don't want to learn more, it's not like you can choose when things will happen, but, don't They have any idea what a 'vacation' means?"

Tom runs a hand through his hair, shutting his eyes. He doesn't feel up to this, even considering that no one ever does; he still feels raw, faith shaken, too close to the horrible, the seductive, the empty blandness that his life had become. _It doesn't matter if you were dragged down unwillingly,_ said Amir, _go down once, and the channel is worn into the dry earth; it's easier to fall back._

_They say God doesn't give us any more than we can handle,_ said Cynthia, and shut the door in his face.

Why Irina had read the tangled mess of a novella he'd passed off as a status report and left him in his position, he hasn't a clue. Either she has more faith in him than he does, or she's just out of other options.

But he knows when to stop listening to himself, when the voices aren't reason but a lonely god seeking company in his misery.

"You get enough," he says. "When it's really important-- you get enough." (Or you don't and you fall, but God never gives people more than they can handle--) 

"Okay," says Kit, "but unless the universe is literally on fire, we do not exist to anyone this weekend. We are not home, we are not available, try another number. I'm getting too old for this nonsense."

Tom remembers voicing similar sentiments at Kit's age-- _since_ Kit's age-- and he could laugh now at how young he was then; he keeps getting older, and the nonsense keeps coming. He pulls an emergency caramel from his pocket; sometimes a little spike in blood sugar makes the whole world feel more welcoming. Why that should be-- why the body is such a complicated machine-- why the world is such a complicated machine--

He lets the thought go. "I'm certainly willing to be an accomplice," he says. "Unless the universe does somehow manage to literally catch fire, in which case I am both dragging you out to help and blaming you for jinxing us."

"I'm pretty sure that violates the laws of physics," said Nita, "and if it doesn't, I will _rewrite_ them until we can go home."

She would and she could and she might, and he wants to cry again; he's so worried he'll lose them, that they can't be contained in this world for much longer. But nothing's ever really lost, is it? So hard to break the habit of believing that this world is the one that matters. 

Besides, he's a wizard, too; he might still go first. (A spell like a contract. Carl's fingers, trembling, through the graying hair at his temples. _I'd do anything for you-- but doing nothing might be harder._ )

The caramel coats his tongue. It's helping.

"So what is the plan for the weekend?" he asks, hoping he doesn't sound like his old boss, prying for any reason you weren't _really_ unavailable. 

"TV," says Nita.

"Popcorn," says Kit.

"Hibernation," says Nita.

"Shouldn't being a couch potato be 'vegetation'?"

"Depends on the season," says Nita.

"That sounds like a great idea," he says, a little wistfully. He has those news feeds to catch up on, and journal articles to read, a suffocating list of things to do... but maybe it'll keep. Survival comes first.

It's easier to protect the world if you remember what's still good about it.

\--

Saturday

A teenage boy is nestled up to his teenage daughter on the couch, and Harry is pretty sure he's supposed to feel scandalized. Be gruff, start yelling, brandish a shotgun. But it's been a long week at work, and despite their vacation, they look about as tired as he feels, and he can't pull people apart right now. He wakes up every morning in a bed that's too big and too cold and he can't pull anyone apart.

Besides, Betty briefed her on the birds and the bees, and he did double check her work. If he's going to trust her to leave the planet, it doesn't make any sense not to trust her around boys. It's very likely she knows more about contraception than he's forgotten.

He pulls a beer from the fridge, quietly; he's craving the familiar and the cold. One won't make much difference. He's been torn between wanting to forget it all and wanting to experience each moment razor-sharp, cutting deep into his memory. He doesn't know which is better, so he's been alternating as the mood takes him. _Whatever gets you through the night._

He shakes his head, takes another swig. His business is a mess, his eldest daughter is debating the ethics of Looney Tunes with her boyfriend, his youngest daughter may or may not be in the solar system, and his wife-- well.

Sometimes he thinks he does that to himself deliberately, lets the memory slip and nick him like a razor. It's better than forgetting. He's so afraid that he is.

He's supposed to move on from this. He doesn't want to.

"Okay, self-defense is one thing," Nita is saying, "but look at that. That clearly crosses the line."

"I dunno, that's just not stopping him from facing the consequences of his actions. Sure, it'd be nice of him, but I wouldn't call it a moral obligation, come on."

It occurs to him that he has no idea what cartoon they're talking about, and that it could be literally almost any of them. Cartoons are stuffed to the brim with cruelty, aren't they? Not that the real world isn't, but he wonders why they put so much of it in, when they have a choice.

"A whole half hour, and no Bugs Bunny? What a rip-off."

"Coulda been worse. Could've had Speedy Gonzalez."

He winces in sympathy. He doesn't know what it's like being a Latino kid faced with that particular Mexican mouse, but he suspects it can't be fun.

"Pepe le Peu is almost as bad, though. Why were we watching these, anyway?"

"Booting up Netflix sounded like effort. You really should let me work on this thing."

"And let poor Dad have to deal with three remotes and alien reality shows any time we're not home? I love my family."

"Heartwarming," he calls out to them, "but it probably can't be worse than the Kardashians."

"Oh yes it can," Kit says immediately, in the tone of the walking wounded.

"I wouldn't even be able to understand it, though, right?"

"Would you watch the Kardashians dubbed on Telemundo?"

He gives that a moment of thought as he walks into the living room. He hasn't wanted to bother them-- they've looked so strangely exhausted for just being back from a vacation-- but if he's going to jump into the conversation, it's going to be much more practical if they're all in the same place. "I stand corrected."

Kit has managed to bring up Netflix on the screen, and he's looking through the children's cartoon category. "I've heard Mela say good things about Steven Universe, but I dunno if that's good or apocalyptically bad. Don't think it's on here anyway though. Could try anime."

Nita winces. "I dunno, I heard they nearly killed Tom with PTSD or something last month when Mela streamed that one show. What was it called?"

Kit sighs, and pitches his voice higher. "Maaadokaaaaaaaaaaa..."

"Well, if I can figure out how that's spelled, I can figure out how to avoid it. I dunno, maybe a rom-com?"

"I would rather be strapped to a chair while Mela showed me her entire '90s collection. Superhero movie?"

Nita winces. "I dunno if I'm up for explosions."

He shakes his head. "Sitting on the couch figuring out what to watch. You two are growing up fast."

It's lucky he doesn't think about it until after he says it; he probably couldn't have kept the twinge of pain from his voice. They are going to grow up-- in the best case scenario-- and it's snuck up on him, somehow, beyond all reason. Nita's going to graduate high school in a few years, going to go off to college-- get a job, leave the nest-- and Dairine's not all that far behind. Whether or not Kit's around forever, and better the devil you know, Nita's dating now; she's growing up, growing out, growing away. 

What's he going to be left with, anymore?

Nita's phone buzzes; she digs it out from her pocket, looking at the message with a frown. An email, or a magic equivalent; he tries not to look too closely, tells himself it's because he doesn't want to snoop. "Aw, man," she says.

"Hmm?"

She looks up at him, and sighs. "So, okay, the place we went? There was this trouble that happened. And we had to help fix it, right?"

Arguing that they should technically have been under no moral obligation to do so as teenage tourists won't get him very far, so he just nods it off. It can't have been all that bad; they're not hurt, they don't look like they've been crying. He wishes they weren't ever involved in anything that bad, isn't sure he can agree on the benevolence of "Powers" that throw children into the line of that kind of fire-- but he knows better than to bring that up.

"Pretty normal," she says, and he carefully doesn't scowl, "but the thing is, their species... it doesn't live very long. They also experience time a little differently? Not very, but a bit. So their whole lifespan is, like... a week."

He shivers, a little. He wants to know why it always seems to be death, these days, but he knows that it's always been death; he's just gotten worse at ignoring it. 

"So we met these people-- three days ago? Four? And I'm getting letters from them like-- well, like this." 

She hands him the phone, and he squints at it. He can at least tell himself it's because of wizard-speak rather than age and probably not even be lying. He can read their Speech, these days, but it's a strange and unsettling process; he crosses his eyes a bit, tries to forget it isn't English, tries to remember it's something he can read, and like one of those magic-eye puzzles, eventually it suddenly comes clear.

Shame it doesn't fix the font size, but it's still a neat trick.

_Hello again, dear friend._

_I'm sorry I haven't tried harder to keep in contact. Time flies by, and life goes on, and there are so many day-to-day distractions that it's easy to get swept up in the world nearby. [Out of sight, out of mind.]_

(Sometimes he'll get to a part and get the distinct impression that what he's reading isn't _exactly_ what they wrote, but something that conveys roughly the same meaning and tone. It's like subtitles in his brain and he's never going to like it.)

_I feel bad letting so much time go by between letters, but then again, maybe to you, it doesn't seem like it's been a long time at all. Well, I'll try not to worry about it, and don't you worry either. Everything is going fine here. Okay, a few near-miss disasters, but they did miss, and we're wizards, that's life!_

_I wish you could see the plains these days. I'm looking out at them as I write this, the broad purple leaves swaying in the evening breeze. There's Riz trying to catch a [bug]-- he's our youngest, our last. Stehlan passed on a little while back. I know he's in a better place, but sometimes I'm still selfish and want him here instead. But time takes us all to the same place, eventually, and you know Yi still needs a keeper. He doesn't jump off cliffs anymore, but that's about as much as I can say._

_I guess this probably all seems silly to you. I feel like such a silly child writing to someone so ancient. Maybe that's why I am again; it's nice to feel young. Running around after children makes you feel as old as the hills, and then they outpace you and you feel even older. Time is a strange, strange thing. I don't know how you handle having so much of it. Forty [days] is enough to boggle my mind!_

_Well, I hate to say it, but this is probably the last time I'll write you a letter like this. I guess that's why I've made it so terribly long. Thank you, old friends. May your sun shine brightly upon you. I'll [see you on the flip side]-- though I might have gone through a load of [reincarnations] by then! So forgive me if it takes me a while to recognize you. But I think some part of me will always remember what you did for us and the adventure we shared._

_[Hail and farewell],_

_-Hei_

He blinks at the screen, nonplussed, grief stinging at his heart again.

Nita says, "She could pass our names down through fifty generations, and some kid could call on that legendary friend of their ancestors' that no one really quite believes in, and that'd be next year. We're, like..."

"Dragons, or something," says Kit, sounding equally discomfited.

"And I just have... no idea what to do with that."

He looks at her, so young, so old, and he doesn't know what to do with it either, he doesn't think you ever really learn. 

At the same time, though, there's a strange comfort in thinking of their lives, that handful of decades, as decadently long. Those conflicting impulses again; he feels cheated of so much time with Betty, he's so grateful that they had so much. The latter feeling is the one he wants to hold on to. He wishes it were just a little easier.

"Not to change the subject," says Kit, "but I still don't know how there can be so many channels and still _nothing on_."

He looks at the television. He understands, now, why they were watching Looney Tunes. "Shut it off," he says. 

"Might be a better idea," says Nita; he's already on his knees, though, opening the little cupboard under the coffee table. Old magazines he can't bear to look at too closely, a holiday decoration or two, but that's not what he's looking for.

"If you're up for it," he says, "I say we head for the kitchen table and play some Uno. I can order some pizza if you're here for dinner, Kit. Maybe ice cream or popcorn and a movie after. Something Disney."

Nita raises an eyebrow. "You know Dair and Disney."

"If she wants to stay downstairs for it, she can heckle all she wants." Which sounds even better, honestly. It wouldn't be the same without Dairine complaining about every character's stupid mistakes; she's been doing it practically since she could talk.

"I'd be up for it," says Kit. Nita looks at him, searchingly, and nods too. 

He leans down to hug her tight; he knows he shouldn't in front of her boyfriend, but parents are allowed these indulgences, once in a while. "Dragon or not," he says quietly, "you're always gonna be my baby, you know?"

He can feel her nod, though of course she doesn't know, not really, the same way he never did when his mother said that to him. That's all right. That's better, even.

He straightens up. "C'mon," he says, "let's clear the table." 

Kit jumps up first-- kid's a good guest, he's got to say-- and Nita follows after, laughing a little at something he can't quite hear. He lingers a moment to collect himself, and is surprised at how good he feels.

They're old, and getting older, and that's as it should be; but it'll be a glorious thing to have them as kids again for the night.

-


End file.
